


Um, I Think Your Brain Is Trying To Tell You Something

by shereadsthestars



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Best Friends, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Florist Castiel (Supernatural), Florists, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Jealous Dean Winchester, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmares, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Roommates, and i had to bring it to fruition, its been a heacanon of mine for literal years, sorry guys cas full name isnt castiel in this one, will add tags when updated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-10-31 02:10:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17840417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shereadsthestars/pseuds/shereadsthestars
Summary: "PEOPLE ALSO ASKWhat is the significance of recurring dreams? ^In general,recurring dreamsindicate the presence of an unresolved and persistent conflict in an individual's life, and the theme or Central Image of thedreamprovides a stage for this conflict to play out. The cessation of a recurrentdreammay indicate that the conflict has been successfully resolved.What's Behind Your Recurring Dreams | Psychology Todayhttps://www.psychologytoday.com>blog"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's been a very long while, I know, but life happens and I'm finally feeling my literary groove again, so obviously I am INCREDIBLY excited to be working on/posting a piece ;D
> 
> As always, this is a work of fiction and I do not own Supernatural or the characters within. Any places listed are to the best of my knowledge made-up and in no means are meant to depict coincidental real-life happenstances.
> 
> And special thanks to Heidi, for reading over this first bit and encouraging me to run with it. I appreciate you, my friend. Very much so! <33
> 
> Enjoy!

“I'm in love with you.”

It comes out in a rush, leaving Dean slightly winded.

Cas just continues to stare, head tilted to the side. “I.. don't understand.”

Dean stares back. His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “What?”

“What does that _mean_?” Cas counters.

“I- fuck.” Dean shakes his head. Why the hell is Cas being so dense? “It means _I'm in love with you_ , man. How else-”

“What is it you're trying to tell me, Dean?” Cas cuts him off, not moving an inch aside from tipping his head to the other side.

Frustration and confusion and concern all course through Dean to the point he actually feels himself shake, and he's just about to let it all out, let Cas really have it, when he's jolted awake by the harsh cords of his alarm clock.

“Fuck,” he pants, wiping the stale, cool sweat thats accumulated from his forehead. He sits up, and the blankets pool around his bare midsection.

It makes him shiver, and he fights the urge to hurl.

 _Not again_.

 

. . .

 

When Dean finally manages to make his way out of his room (no, he wasn't hiding out) it's to Cas smiling softly at him from their tiny two-seater table. “Good morning,” Cas greets.

Sleep lingers in the words and makes the little creases by his eyes not as pronounced and as it does every other morning that begins like this, causes something deep within Dean's chest to ache.

“Morning,” he says back, covering it with a soft smile of his own. He fills his favorite mug to the brim, chip be damned, and knocks Cas' foot out of the way so he can sit as well. “Thanks.”

Cas lifts his own mug in acknowledgment, blue eyes twinkling at him over the faint ripples of steam, and Dean really _really_ needs to get this situation under control.

 

. . .

 

Cas doesn't date.

Or well, he _hasn't_ dated for as long as Dean's known him. And Dean has known him for a while.

Since middle school a while.

Which is why when Cas texts him early one evening that he's going out for drinks with the new florist after work and he won't make dinner, it's like a sucker punch to the gut and sends Dean reeling.

“Dude what is your _deal_ ,” Charlie's tinny voice sounds through his headphones. “You're sucking more than usual tonight.”

“Fuck off,” Dean quips back, but then hits pause because there's no use in denying it. He sighs and tosses his controller on the coffee table. “Cas went on a date.”

Silence.

He taps his mic. “You still there?”

“Uh, roger,” Charlie says, slowly, and her shock is apparent. She clears her throat. “He went on a.. wait what? I thought he wasn't into shit like that. Didn't do the Romance.”

“So did I.”

But apparently Dean was wrong. Just like he must have been wrong about all the little hints (he thought, anyway) Cas had been dropping about them spending Valentine's day together.

I mean, they've spent Valentine's day together before; hung out, really, when neither of them had anything to do. When Cas wasn't working and Dean didn't have prior engagements.

And Dean has had a lot of prior engagements.

But that's besides the point.

The point is that Dean thought they might be getting somewhere. Somewhere in that _specific_ direction.

The direction of him finally being able to express just how entirely over the moon he is for one Cassidy Leighton Novak.

But no. Cas is on a date with the hunky new florist of Bishop's Botanicals and Dean is stuck sitting alone at home playing WoW with Charlie via the web.

“Um, I can hear you, you know,” she says, breaking his reverie.

He shakes his head. “Fuck, sorry. I just-”

“Also how do you know this new guy is even hunky? Didn't he just start like, yesterday, or something? He could be a total dud.”

“I don't, and he did. But it's _Cas,_ Char _._ Cas is like a thousand on a scale of one to ten and there's no way he'd go out with a dud.”

He's met with silence again, and is just about to ask if she's still there, again, when she sighs her trademark long insufferable sigh.

And he knows exactly what she's going to say before she even says it.

“This could have all been avoided if you just told him how you felt already.”

 _Bingo_.

“I can't.”

“You can.”

“What if it fucks everything up? What if he-”

Dean can't even bring himself to say the words: _what if he leaves?_

He swallows back the lump that's formed in his throat and imagines Charlie's sympathetic frown when she replies with, “but what if he meets someone, and ends up leaving anyway? Before you ever got the chance to tell him.”

The lump gets bigger because she's right. And goddammit he _hates_ it when she's right.

He tells her as much.

“I know. But you also love me for it too,” she chirps, and he can hear her grin. “Just talk to him, yeah? No matter the outcome I think it's time you let these demons free.”

He snorts at that. _Demons_. “I'll try.”

“That's my boy,” she says, and if she were here right now he knows she'd nudge him in the arm lightly. “Now c'mon, the clocks'a tickin'!"

That earns her a genuine laugh, and he picks up his abandon controller, resuming his position. “So bossy.”

“Well someone's gotta be.”

He laughs again, and it pushes their conversation a little bit further towards the back burner of his mind.

With any hope, by the end of the night, it will be so far back he won't have to think about it for at least another week.

Two tops.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Because of the coward Dean is, he goes to bed early so he won't have to subject himself to a happy Cas coming home all high on cloud nine and glistening like the sun on a perfect summer day.

He also maybe does it so he won't ruin said high either, by being an actual sorry sack who has exactly no one other than himself to blame.

But there's no denying that whatever reasons he had the night previous seem to pale in comparison to the utter guilt he feels when he meanders into the kitchen bright and early the next morning to be met with the simplest, most beautiful bouquet of fuchsia African Daisies he's ever seen.

They're arranged expertly in the funky clear glass vase Cas found at a flea market a few years back, and even though Dean didn't really get the appeal (still doesn't), he shrugged and bought it anyway. Because it made Cas happy. And anything that makes Cas happy is awesome in his book.

Now he stares at it and wishes he'd of left it where it sat on the tattered blanket in the grass. Because it's making that familiar ache that lives in his chest _pulse_ with something he can't quite put a word to.

It's not fair that Cas can go on a date and no doubt have the time of his life, then come home and spend who knows how long maneuvering Dean's favorite flowers just so on their shared kitchen table in the vase that Dean bought him, so that they'd be the first thing Dean would see upon entering the room the next morning.

It's not.

And just when he starts feeling the frustration that haunts him in his dreams, he's swiftly reminded much like a brick to the face that he's got no right whatsoever to even feel it in the first place.

Because Cas can date whoever he damn well pleases. And while Dean may be a chicken shit of epic proportions, it's wholly unjustified to assume that Cas even feels the same way.

Ugh, now on top of guilty he just feels like a massive douche.

This is not _him_.

He is not that _guy_.

So he sets about making the apology breakfast of all apology breakfasts, and chastises himself to be _better_.

 

. . .

 

“Smells good,” Cas hums as he sidles up beside Dean not even fifteen minutes later.

He's wearing a baggy sleep shirt, worn sweatpants, his hair is an absolute mess, and it takes everything in Dean not to kiss the sleep warm skin of his forearm as he reaches over him to grab a mug from the cupboard.

“Well, ya know,” Dean responds, opting to nudge Cas with his elbow instead, “if I don't feed you, who will?”  
Cas grins, all sleepy and dopey and content and for a moment Dean forgets all about his earlier hang-ups. Like they simply went from one day to the next without so much as a glitch in their usual.

“No one,” Cas says, and steals a piece of fruit off the cutting board Dean is working at before making his way to the table.

He leans over to smell the flowers he'd put there, then moves to tuck one bare foot beneath him as he sits, and Dean allows himself the indulgence of watching Cas take the first glorious, blessed sip. Of watching the way Cas closes his eyes in pure bliss, then slowly lick his lips afterwards.

When his eyes open again they land on Dean immediately, almost as if they'd been seeking him out; known he was watching. They don't waiver, just stare back, and it rattles Dean so much that he does what he does best in situations he's not prepared for and slathers it on.

 _Thick_.

He winks, summoning a grin of his own. One that tugs more at the right side of his mouth than the left. “That's right,” he says, all charm and cockiness that's been bread into him since the day he was born, then points at Cas with the pairing knife in his hand, “and don't you forget it.”

Cas' returning laugh is genuine and mirthful, and he shakes his head before bringing the mug to his lips again. “Never.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot how fun it is to let your characters sort of just do their thing.
> 
> Also, I kinda like short chapters? So they're more like 'updates' than anything. Anywho! would love to hear your feedback on this as the whole story is unraveling itself inside my head :D


	3. Chapter 3

Dean doesn't bring up the date, and neither does Cas. But that doesn't stop Cas from dropping Tristan's name every other conversation they have.

So far in the three weeks since Dean has learned that Tristan rides a motorcycle when the weather permits, has a B.A. in gender studies, switched to botany after helping his sister plan her wedding to which he attended with not one but _two_ dates, and vacations in Prague.

Among many other equally fascinating and alluring things, of course.

Dean tries not to be jealous. He does. But it's hard to ignore the irritating pang beneath his sternum when Cas' eyes light up as he's relaying all this info like _he_ thinks it's the most fascinating and alluring thing he's ever heard.

Nevermind that it was Dean's shoulder he fell asleep on embarrassingly early Valentine's evening after a shared heart-shaped pizza and six pack of seasonal beer.

(Dean may or may not have snapped a pic and set it as Cas' contact photo, but Cas will never know, so it's fine.)

And that Charlie oh-so-kindly pointed out that if Cas really _were_ dating Tristan, he most likely would have spent the night with him, as opposed to Dean.

Regardless of previous plans, _because it's Valentine's day, for fucks sake_.

Quote, unquote.

Dean still has doubts though.

 

. . .

 

It's a cold morning when Cas forgets his lunch.

Dean stares at where it sits tauntingly on the top shelf.

He's in a crap mood from his crap sleep because of the crap dreams that just seem to be getting worse, and the last thing he wants to do is drive across town to bring Cas his frickin' leftover lo mien, but the fact that Cas had even taken the time to pack it in the first place means he must have really been looking forward to it.

So, goddammit, that is exactly what Dean is gonna do.

 

. . .

 

When he gets there he's not in any better of a mood. If anything, it's made worse as he walks through the heavy paned door, and the chime overhead interrupts a rather intimate looking conversation.

“Dean?” Cas questions from behind the counter. He's obviously surprised to see him, but does a good job at hiding it for the sake of his companion. Which, now that Dean _really_ gets a look at Tristan, he's flushed with a whole new wave of irritation.

The guy is gorgeous.

Tall, tan, tattooed and pony-tailed.

Well, man-bunned.

“What are you doing here?” Cas continues, making his way around the counter and out onto the floor where Dean is still standing dumbly in the mist of a billion hanging plants.

“I uh,” he says, finally tearing his eyes away from Tristan's questioning gaze, “you forgot this.”

He holds up the geometric printed lunch sack, and Cas smiles, before taking it from his hand and wrapping his arms around Dean's neck. “Thank you,” he murmurs, giving a little squeeze. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

Out of reflex, or maybe familiarity, Dean's palms sprawl at the dip of Cas' back to hold him in place as he pulls back, about to quip something along the lines of how Cas always _does_ forget something, when he's interrupted by an awkward clearing of a throat.

“Oh,” Cas huffs, turning in Dean's grip to glance behind him. “You two haven't officially met yet.”

Dean bites his tongue to keep from saying he _feels_ like he already has, and let's Cas take his hand after untangling himself from Dean's neck.

He walks and talks at the same time. “Tristan, this is Dean, and Dean, this is Tristan.”

Dean reaches across the counter with his free hand, and accepts Tristan's waiting one with a gentle shake. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise,” Tristan responds, that same questioning look in his eyes. “I've heard a lot about you.”

“Same.”

Now Cas clears his throat awkwardly. “Did you wanna hang out for a bit? See the new seedlings I've got going?”

He's still holding Dean's hand, and Dean would really like to stay and evaluate the situation, but he's getting some weird intense vibes from Tristan. And Cas has that flighty set to his shoulders that means he's three seconds away from spooking.

“Nah,” Dean says, slipping his palm out of Cas'. “I've gotta head back. Ash'll lose his nut if I'm any longer than I'm supposed to be.”

Cas seems as if he's going to protest, but thinks better of it and nods. He scratches behind his ear. “See you tonight then?”

“Yeah, tonight.”

Dean offers a final pleasantry to Tristan, then beelines for the door.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3
> 
> Feedback/Comments/Kudos are not only important for growth's sake but also fuel my muse! And are very much appreciated : ))


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